Now.....that's the movie I'd rather see!! I don't give two shits about another alien-loose-on-a-ship movie. I'd rather see about The Engineers, their homeworld, and their potential interactions with Elizabeth and the android.

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The [xenomorph] is done. Cooked. I got lucky meeting Giger all those years ago. It's very hard to repeat that. After four, I think it wears out a little bit. There's only so much snarling you can do. I think you've got to come back with something more interesting. And I think we've found the next step. I thought the Engineers were quite a good start.

The [xenomorph] is done. Cooked. I got lucky meeting Giger all those years ago. It's very hard to repeat that. After four, I think it wears out a little bit. There's only so much snarling you can do. I think you've got to come back with something more interesting. And I think we've found the next step. I thought the Engineers were quite a good start.

I think that this movie is still going to be more COVENENT and less ALIEN. They just think that making another Alien-universe movie without showing the Xenomorph is going to cost them.

i think it's pretty clear from the trailer this is going to be less "Alien" and more "Aliens", a bunch of shaky cam action, screaming and blood spatter and 'splosions and no fucking answers, just more open ended sequel-teasing. Ridley Scott sold out on this one. period.

Scott finds himself stuck between two constructs — the action-horror beats of an Alien film, and the weighty, ponderous themes of a Prometheus movie — and by indulging both, he never fully satisfies either.

Scott finds himself stuck between two constructs — the action-horror beats of an Alien film, and the weighty, ponderous themes of a Prometheus movie — and by indulging both, he never fully satisfies either.

Bill Higgins wrote:In the late '70s, Fox had two big reasons to love sci-fi: 1977's PG-rated Star Wars and, two years later, the much more violent, R-rated Alien. Darth Vader looks almost cuddly compared to Alien's implacable star, designed by the Swiss surrealist painter H.R. Giger. "We used to say they were The Beatles and we were The Rolling Stones," says Alien producer Walter Hill of the blockbusters. "Our film had something people hadn't seen up to that point: the artifice of a B-movie done in an A-movie style."

THR called Alien "extremely effective and scary as hell," which is what director Ridley Scott wanted. "It's much harder to really frighten people than to make them smile or laugh," he says. "The two great films for that are The Exorcist, because possession by the devil has a certain credence to it, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which has flat-out horrendous violence that shocked the hell out of me. My goal was to take the audience to the edge of stress."

Scott, then 41 and with only one feature on his résumé, was fifth in line to direct Alien — behind Robert Altman. ("I could not see Bob doing this," he notes.) When Fox finally offered Scott the job, he declined to make any script changes. "You can easily give notes and turn a 'go' film into a development deal," he says. "I just said, 'I love it, I love it.' And we made it." He revisits the material in Alien: Covenant, a prequel out May 19.

Ribbons wrote:What did you think it needed to be, just out of curiosity?

Prometheus concluded with Shaw recovering David, taking charge and demanding that they visit where the Engineers are from.

If they're making a follow-up to Prometheus it seems plausible for the audience to expect that the movie will involve going to visit the home planet of the Engineers and discover the meaning of the concepts raised in Prometheus (and perhaps see how we get from Prometheus to Alien).

So perhaps I found it slightly unsatisfying because it didn't scratch that itch. The Engineers are put to one side and appear to be of no consequence. Shaw's arc is completely ignored.

Instead, David is revealed to really be the main character of interest. Which kinda makes you wonder if Ridley Scott's attention hadn't been diverted by the Blade Runner sequel (since David is so very much reminscent of Roy Batty in this movie).

So I think it needed to be more "Covenant" and less "Alien: Covenent".

Last edited by Fried Gold on Mon May 15, 2017 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ribbons wrote:What did you think it needed to be, just out of curiosity?

Having concluded Prometheus with Shaw recovering David, taking charge and demanding that they visit where the Engineers are from.

If they're making a follow-up to Prometheus it seems plausible for the audience to expect that the movie will involve going to visit the home planet of the Engineers and discover the meaning of the concepts raised in Prometheus (and perhaps see how we get from Prometheus to Alien).

So perhaps I found it slightly unsatisfying because it didn't scratch that itch. The Engineers are put to one side and appear to be of no consequence. Shaw's arc is completely ignored.

Instead, David is revealed to really be the main character of interest. Which kinda makes you wonder if Ridley Scott's attention hadn't been diverted by the Blade Runner sequel (since David is so very much reminscent of Roy Batty in this movie).

So I think it needed to be more "Covenant" and less "Alien: Covenent".

if you don't care about what happened to Dr Shaw and her trip to the engineer planet than you really have no business watching Alien movies. after all, if no one cares about what happens to the main characters of a story then what is the fucking point of watching the story to begin with?????

Peven wrote:if you don't care about what happened to Dr Shaw and her trip to the engineer planet than you really have no business watching Alien movies. after all, if no one cares about what happens to the main characters of a story then what is the fucking point of watching the story to begin with?????

Exactly how I felt after watching PROMETHEUS.

Although the idea of her and David's head taking off at the end to find The Engineers was one of the things I liked about the film and something I was looking forward to when they announced a sequel.

Peven wrote:if you don't care about what happened to Dr Shaw and her trip to the engineer planet than you really have no business watching Alien movies. after all, if no one cares about what happens to the main characters of a story then what is the fucking point of watching the story to begin with?????

Also, isn't it the movie's job to provide characters for me to care about? And wouldn't I have to see the movie all the way through to decide if there was a point of watching it to begin with?

I guess I don't really understand the question. Yeah, I had to watch the movie to determine that it was lacking memorable and interesting characters that ultimately I did not care about.

I have no business watching ALIEN movies if I didn't care about the characters in PROMETHEUS? Can I still watch other ALIEN movies even though I don't care about Shaw, a character who is not in the other movies?

Harry wrote:While no shit exited my ass during the first screening, I’m thinking of having Taco Bell before tonight’s screening, just to give Ridley every chance he can to actually scare the shit out of me.

Chris Hartwell wrote:Scott came close to doing what the best sequels and prequels have accomplished: daring to explore something different.As the marketing for Alien: Covenant ramped up, the studio seemed bent on communicating one, simple message: "this is the Alien film that you've been waiting to see!" There will be face huggers. There will be chest bursters. And of course there will be Xenomorphs. And everything from the title — which unlike its predecessor, Prometheus, opted to include the word Alien — to the posters to the trailers have communicated that message.

It's interesting then to flash back to 2012's Prometheus and recall how differently the studio and filmmakers approached that installment — its marketing, narrative, and visuals — and how distinctive of a film that we got because of it.

With that film, director Ridley Scott and writers Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof openly declared that they were making something other than the "alien film that we'd been waiting to see." And many fans were not pleased, accusing Prometheus of being drawn out, boring and too exposition heavy.

And while it wasn't without its glaring flaws — some thinly drawn motivations, some rather irrational characters, and some undeniably contrived plot turns — I would argue that Scott and his screenwriters, because of that fresh focus, were able to craft a new chapter in the Alien franchise that came close to accomplishing what the best sequels and prequels have accomplished.

Part of the reason that Aliens, The Empire Strikes Back, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day were such fantastic sequels was they dared to do something narratively and thematically different, while still remaining visually and aesthetically comparable to what had come before. In those sequels, it would be an all-out war with the Xenomorphs, Luke would spend half the movie training with a green Muppet, and the ultimate baddy would become the protagonist. Even so, the aliens would still be performers in latex suits, the Millennium Falcon remained practical model, and the terminator exoskeleton would be full-size puppets.

And so it was with Prometheus. Scott was hell-bent on constructing, in reality, as much as possible, quite literally extending the largest soundstage in Europe — found at Pinewood Studios — by an extra third, to maintain the same sort of texture and realism found in his 1979 original.

For similar reasons, many of the creatures and gore effects were done in camera as well — the infamous med-pod scene featuring a fully realized animatronic alien.

And even while no other Alien film had been shot in 3D, Scott's compositions and camera moves on Prometheus imitated those seen in his past films, which themselves highlighted their environments' depth.

But having laid that foundation and established that connective tissue visually and aesthetically, the most fantastic aspects of Prometheus — like the aforementioned sequels — were what it then did differently.

In Charles de Lauzirika's documentary The Furious Gods: Making Prometheus, director Scott stated — and I would say accurately so — "you really wrung it dry [with those] four films." We'd gotten the sci-fi horror film with Alien and the straight-up action film with Aliens and, more or less, variations of the same with Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection. They were humans in confined spaces, battling Xenomorphs.

Consequently, what the director wisely chose to do with Prometheus was open up the world, visually, narratively, and thematically.

Looking at the designs of the ship interiors or planet exteriors, for example — especially as compared to those found in the 1979 Alien — they were so distinctly open and vast. The Nostromo in Alien was this cramped, worn down mining vessel that happened upon a crashed ship on the dim and atmospheric LV-426. And the Prometheus was this extremely well-funded exploration craft that embarked on this adventure to the vast and clear LV-223.

And those visuals appropriately connected to Prometheus' very daring and grandiose philosophical explorations. That story wasn't just about monsters chasing humans — even as it did feature such sequences — it was about who created those monsters and why and whether we, as a species, were just a destructive and vile.

It's a shame then that Prometheus received as much flak as it did, that negativity seeming to have pushed the filmmakers, with Alien: Covenant, back towards something more akin the first four Alien films. But even while Scott — who now openly considers the de-emphasis on the actual alien in Prometheus to be a mistake — ended up repurposing a number of the same beats found in previous installments, he's still too inventive of a filmmaker to throw all of Prometheus' boldness and diversity out with the bathwater.

As actor Michael Fassbender — who played synthetics Walter and David — said in the aforementioned documentary, "[with sequels] you've got to maybe sort of upset people, or take that risk." And Alien: Covenant does that, maintaining a few of the ideas that made Prometheus so fresh and interesting, while also delivering the thrills and chills fan have come to expect from this franchise. So in the end, even as it's neither the most original nor most balanced film, Alien: Covenant may still be "the Alien film that you've been waiting to see."

For more from Alien: Covenant, take a look at why the Xenomorph remains horrifying to audiences decades later and this handy primer for what you actually need to know before seeing the latest sequel/prequel.

Yes, Alien: Covenant is better than Prometheus. Yes, it largely does away with the often incoherent actions undertaken by that film's characters. Yes, it delivers a fair amount of classic xenomorph action. Yes, it is violent to a degree I would characterize as "gnarly". Yes, it is worthy - worthy of the franchise, worthy of the fanbase, worthy of the director (Sir Ridley Scott) who seems positively on fire with ambition, even at the ripe old age of 80. Regardless of what some may tell you, yes: Alien: Covenant is actually good.

Caruso, I give credit where credit is due, and after watching "Alien:Covenant" today I can say you are absolutely correct in not giving a shit about what happens to the characters in Alien Prometheus or in Covenant, because why the fuck would you, when it is obvious that Ridley Scott doesn't either. the entirety of Covenant is like a cinematic Ridley Scott jerk-off, its all for his pleasure and satisfaction, with no real narrative discovery or moral or expansion, and we're just paying for it. Covenant renders the entire Alien franchise impotent and mundane, a dressed up Saturn 3. I have no interest in seeing what comes next, there have been many robots gone mad movies and there is nothing to give any indication that Scott is delving into new territory with his mad robot story. really, Ridley, how fucking droll.

Last edited by Peven on Mon May 22, 2017 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm trying to decide if this is worse than PROMETHEUS or if it's just as bad, but in a different way.

First off, I think there are scenes in this film that are better than anything in PROMETHEUS. And there are less scenes of people doing dumb things. But when people DO do dumb things in this film, it's reaaaally dumb. Like stick-my-face-in-the-alien-egg-because-the-creepy-robot-told-me-to dumb. Billy Crudup's character is the dumbest fucking asshole in the universe.

Once again, people are not wearing helmets or masks or anything while exploring an alien planet. An alien planet with conveniently breathable air. A Star Trek planet. And within five minutes two people are infected with some alien bullshit. Helmets, people.

I could list more of the bad stuff, which is mostly just dumb stuff. The stuff that isn't dumb is just downright frustrating. The resolution of the Shaw character is pretty bad and kind of a slap in the face to the character who even if I wasn't terribly interested in her at least showed promise at the end of PROMETHEUS. I hated that movie, but at least the ending left the door open to a better movie. A movie which is barely glimpsed in this film.

When this film really falls apart is when the aliens show up. It was an okay movie up until then. Actually, the first thirty or so minutes were going so well I found myself wondering if this might end up being better than I expected, but then I reminded myself of where I was and what I was watching and who made it and remembered that it would get bad eventually and it did.

One major problem here is a lack of interesting characters and absolutely zero development of those characters and even less meaningful interaction between those characters. I'm talking mainly about the crew of the Covenant here. There is no real rapport between them, which is especially bad because the entire crew is made up of couples so you'd think they could get something out of that but they don't.

They set Crudup up as this guy that nobody really likes or trusts, but don't have any meaningful scenes of them questioning or undermining his authority aside from a few throwaway moments. And since the events of the film only occur because of Crudup's terrible judgment I'd say they were justified in not liking him. Not because he is a man of "faith" as he puts it, but because he's a stupid fucking asshole.

The whole "faith" thing was pointless by the way. I have no idea why that was in there. Shaw's whole thing as a character was her "faith" but I can't say there are any similarities between those characters.

The CGI aliens were kinda dodgy.

The "twist" at the end was ridiculously obvious and ineffective. I don't know why they bothered it was so goddamn obvious.

So there was some good stuff. Unfortunately, all of the good stuff hints at a much better film than was made. The opening scene with Michael Fassbender and Guy Pearce is excellent. That's like three minutes right there. And then there's the scene where you have Michael Fassbender acting with himself and playing the flute. That was pretty good. I mean, obviously, Michael Fassbender is the best part of the movie. Again. I don't know why Ridley Scott bothers with all the other shit in this movie when David is the only character he gives a shit about.

The best moment in the film comes when David tells his "brother" Walter about the day he came to the planet and mass genocided the fuck out of all the Engineers with nine billion pounds of alien pathogen. How that was not that opening of this film is beyond me. And how we don't get a film following that event is beyond me. The idea of David spending a decade is engineering aliens is pretty cool, I guess.

Of course that's a pretty big retcon right there. The Space Jockey in ALIEN is ancient, so obviously the aliens have been around a long time. Except David invented them not too long before ALIEN, so.....I don't know. Fuck continuity I guess.

You know what, I don't know why I wrote all this shit. Fuck this movie.

I rewatched LEVIATHAN with my wife last night after quite a few years and found it amusing that as an ALIEN ripoff it spent much more time developing its characters and their relationships than Ridley Scott's latest ALIEN film did.

Also noticed for the first time that LEVIATHAN was shot by Alex Thomson, who was the director of photography for my favorite ALIEN picture, ALIEN CUBED. And, perhaps more importantly, for MR. DESTINY starring Jim Belushi.

Chris wrote:Back in February of this year, we exclusively shared an Alien: Covenant rumor which had been presented to us which involved a battle between the film's new Neomorph aliens and the iconic Xenomorph. Obviously, if you've seen Covenant you will know that (unfortunately) no such scene exists in the film. However, we exclusively learned through trusted individuals who worked on Covenant that a confrontation between the Xenomorph and Neomorph was at one point a planned scene for the film!

According to our sources, the scene was originally going to play out when Daniels, Walter/David and Lope are running towards the lander, which Tennessee boarded to rescue the surviving Covenant crew.

In the film, the last Neomorph was killed shortly after David attempted to "tame" it, with the newly born Xenomorph chasing down Daniels and Lope, attaching itself to the lander.

However, originally the Neomorph was going to be the one chasing Daniels and Lope and during that chase scene the Xenomorph would have revealed itself, attacking the Neomorph and asserting itself as the dominant Alien lifeform.

The scene was meant to convey just how much larger and nastier the Xenomorph was compared to the already aggressive Neomorph. But according to our sources, the scene kept encountering issues, primarily with the practical suits the actors wore during the battle sequence. Apparently the spikes on the back of the Neomorph suit kept catching on the elongated head crest - causing all kinds of issues and frustration.

Ultimately the scene was not included, or even completed and we're not sure if it will ever be included in a future Director's Cut of the film. But, for the sake of confirmation, it is nice to know this rumor almost came to fruition. A clash between these two Aliens would have been an epic spectacle to witness.

the audience knows what it wants when it sees it. sometimes they think they know what they want then change their minds when they see it, other times they don't realize what they want until they see it. basically, the audience is like a 3 yr old at the dinner table

- a Prometheus 2 (conclusion to/continuation/resolution of) of Prometheus story)- another Alien (more Ridley Scott tense and suspense thriller)- another Aliens (action and guns and aliens)- something a bit different

...and the filmmakers knew this. They both tried to tick all those boxes while failing to tick all those boxes.

So it was a bit pointless in the end and nobody was satisfied.

If they are to continue making Alien movies, they should limit the budgets and hire up & coming directors (like they used to).

They needed to pick just one of those things and then construct a well-written film around it. ALIEN COVENANT as it exists is a slapped-together mess trying to satisfy too many conflicting interests while being propelled by some of the dumbest fucking characters in the universe. One could argue that PROMETHEUS had dumber characters, but none of them were as jaw-dropping fucking stupid as Billy Crudup's dumb-fuck idiot fucking asshole captain. What a waste of talent.

I had a vague idea in mind when it came to an Alien prequel before these films every came about, of a system say of 9ish planets all with crazy creatures of their own, and the Xenos were going about destroying/assimilating them killing off one planet after another and being a plague that was spreading to other systems, coming our way too maybe, or not. Some humans went out searching for them, maybe to stop this domino effect fearing it would come to Earth, or to harness it as a weapon, hence Weyland/Yutani.

Again just a sketchily dreamed up story. But it gives a ton of new creatures/mosnters/and humans. (Though I did like The Engineers are our Creators idea that we got.)

Peven wrote:the audience knows what it wants when it sees it. sometimes they think they know what they want then change their minds when they see it, other times they don't realize what they want until they see it. basically, the audience is like a 3 yr old at the dinner table

I was actually just watching The Wrath of Khan (and listening to the commentary), and Nicholas Meyer makes this same point. Somehow word got out before the movie was even finished filming that Spock was going to die, and fans revolted, sending impassioned warnings not to go through with this plan and even threatening to kill the people involved, in some cases. Meyer held the line against producers who were spooked by this response, and Wrath of Khan went on to become the most beloved film in the original series, Spock's death scene arguably the most iconic in all of Trek-dom. Why? Because in Meyer's own words, "The fans don't know what they want until you give it to them." Before and during Prometheus's run, fans complained loudly that the Alien prequel needed to be "more Alien-y." Facehuggers! Chestbursters! Aliens-level action sequences! Some girl who looks like Ripley! Well with Prometheus 2: Alien Covenant, they got the prequel that they thought they wanted, and it's a fucking mess.

Blah blah blaaaah! Yes Ribbons, we know the long winded story about Spock's death being known before the movie. Thank you for re-explaing that to us for 4 bloody lines, you really are an Admin for a reason aren't you?

As far as the fans not knowing what they want with Alien and talking like immature 13 year old redneck twat Americans, as if people in the US weren't dumb enough, well there is reason why my Disqus handle is 'theinternetisfullofidiots'.

Some advice for Ridley and other film makers like Ron "I should cast Javier Bardem as Roland in The Dark Tower as that's what the fans want and they're not fucking idiots!" Howard - DON'T EVER LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET HAVE TO SAY ABOUT FILMS BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW JACK SHIT - ESPECIALLY ZONERS!.

Unless you're James Cameron where nearly 100% of people online are telling you to Fuck Off with your Avatar sequel plans.

Holy crap on a cross was this a bad movie. If I had an hour it would be enough time to write down what was wrong with this film. As with all Alien movies, I go into them with the sincere hope that I'll like it (one of my favorite franchises). I reasoned with Prometheus...the sheer stupidity of the characters was a bitter pill to swallow, but I thought it looked incredible. This one though... there's not a single redeemable quality in this movie. What a fucking waste.

It's as if the filmmakers made a list of things people DIDN'T want from an ALIEN film or a PROMETHEUS sequel. I hated PROMETHEUS, but even I was a bit intrigued by the prospect of a (hopefully better made, more interesting) sequel. And then they just crammed all that potential into a 45 second flashback. And the rest of the film was a bunch of dumb assholes wandering around a lost episode of the original Star Trek series.

I still marvel at how much dumber the characters in ALIEN COVENANT are compared to the fucking idiots in PROMETHEUS. Billy Crudup's character is, by far, the dumbest fucking asshole in the universe.

It's a shame, because the acting in the film is really good. Fassbender is absolutely the best part of the film and I liked Danny McBride too. The film did a good job of letting me think it might not be a total shitpile with the first 30 minutes being decent, but then stuff stopped making sense and everyone started being a fucking moron.

caruso_stalker217 wrote:It's as if the filmmakers made a list of things people DIDN'T want from an ALIEN film or a PROMETHEUS sequel. I hated PROMETHEUS, but even I was a bit intrigued by the prospect of a (hopefully better made, more interesting) sequel. And then they just crammed all that potential into a 45 second flashback. And the rest of the film was a bunch of dumb assholes wandering around a lost episode of the original Star Trek series.

So the planet they were on was the Engineer homeworld. Or at least a significant Engineer colony with big ass monuments and structures and at least a few thousand inhabitants. Where are all the aliens that burst out of these people after David carpet-bombed them? Were all his taxidermy subjects from Engineers who survived the original attack that he infected for his own experiments? Or did those aliens come from the indigenous animals of that planet getting infected?

caruso_stalker217 wrote:I still marvel at how much dumber the characters in ALIEN COVENANT are compared to the fucking idiots in PROMETHEUS. Billy Crudup's character is, by far, the dumbest fucking asshole in the universe.

Like you said in you earlier comments above, he had one throwaway line about his past that maybe sounded like something really aweful happened to him, thus turning him into a man of faith, but after than 10 second delivery of the line, it wasn't mentioned again. Wtf? Clearly something was cut that may have been the proper backstory. I don't know about his character being an asshole, but my God he was so dumb. Like, you-gotta-be-kidding-me dumb.

And lastly, you'd think these 'super-intelligent' generic engineers would have some kind of fail-safe for this impossibly-deadly mega virus they created, just in case a few spores got loose.

so sorry wrote:Holy crap on a cross was this a bad movie. If I had an hour it would be enough time to write down what was wrong with this film. As with all Alien movies, I go into them with the sincere hope that I'll like it (one of my favorite franchises). I reasoned with Prometheus...the sheer stupidity of the characters was a bitter pill to swallow, but I thought it looked incredible. This one though... there's not a single redeemable quality in this movie. What a fucking waste.

I fucking hate this movie more as time passes. I hate this movie even more than I hate Alien3, and my profound hate for that movie is well documented on here going back 10+ years. every time I think of this movie I get a feeling of revulsion shooting through my being and I say out loud, "fuck you, Ridley Scott!"